I look in many places for inspiration and save all sorts of interesting and odd things that I look at every now and then when I need to motivate my muse. I don’t know where I found this. I have a bad habit of finding things on the Internet and saving them, but not adding a citation so I’ll know where it came from if I ever decide to use it for something other than my amusement of inspiration.

I used to live a block away from one of the cemeteries in Wausau, WI. It was a great place to walk the dog, but it was a little spooky at night, especially on a cloudy, drizzly night near the back where there wasn’t much light. I think the spookiness came, not from the cemetery residents but from all the cemetery stories I saw, read and heard when I was growing up.

Here are some fascinating inscriptions found on old tombstones:

Harry Edsel Smith of Albany, New York: Born 1903–Died 1942.Looked up the elevator shaft to see if thecar was on the way down. It was.

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On a gravestone in a Georgetown, Washington, D.C. area cemeteryKatharine Phelps Brown Ivison 11/25/17 – 6/12/97Sterling Hollinshead Ivison, Jr. 6/26/19 – 8/16/08We finally found a place to park in Georgetown.

—————————————————In a Thurmont, Maryland, cemetery:Here lies an Atheist, all dressed upand no place to go.

—————————————————In a Ribbesford, England, cemetery:Anna WallaceThe children of Israel wanted bread,And the Lord sent them manna.Clark Wallace wanted a wife,And the Devil sent him Anna.

—————————————————On the grave of Ezekial Aikle in East Dalhousie Cemetery, Nova Scotia:Here lies Ezekial Aikle, Age 102.Only the good die young.

—————————————————In a London, England cemetery:Here lies Ann Mann, who lived an old maidbut died an old Mann. Dec. 8, 1767

———————————————In a Silver City, Nevada, cemetery:Here lays The Kid,We planted him raw.He was quick on the trigger,But slow on the draw.

—————————————————A lawyer’s epitaph in England:Sir John Strange.Here lies an honest lawyer,and that is Strange.

—————————————————In a cemetery in Hartscombe, England:On the 22nd of June, Jonathan Fiddle went out of tune.

—————————————————Anna Hopewell’ s grave in Enosburg Falls, Vermont:Here lies the body of our Anna,Done to death by a banana.It wasn’t the fruit that laid her low,But the skin of the thing that made her go.—————————————————

On a grave from the 1880s in Nantucket, Massachusetts:Under the sod and under the trees,Lies the body of Jonathan Pease.He is not here, there’s only the pod,Pease shelled out and went to God.

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The grave of Ellen Shannon in Girard, Pennsylvania is almost a consumer tip:

Who was fatally burnedMarch 21, 1870by the explosion of a lampfilled with “R.E. Danforth’sNon-Explosive Burning Fluid”

——————————————-In a cemetery in England:Remember man, as you walk by,As you are now, so once was I.As I am now, so shall you be,Remember this and follow me.To which someone replied by writing on the tombstone:To follow you I’ll not consent, Until I know which way you went.

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Most celebrity gravestones are well known, but this is my favorite, Winston Churchill (1874-1965):

I am ready to meet my Maker,Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter!